#paving companies in rhode island

[jperrypavingri]

Our Services in Rhode Island

J. Perry Paving is proud to offer exceptional asphalt driveway paving services in Warwick, RI. Our experienced project managers specialize in creating strong and durable driveways that can stand the test of time. Whether you have a small area to pave or a large one, we make sure to work with your scheduling needs to finish the job efficiently. Contact us today at 401-732-1730 for more details. With J. Perry Paving, you can trust our team to deliver quality results that will last for many years to come.

[craigdipetrillo]

Real Estate Innovators- Disruptive Models and Forward Thinkers like Craig DiPetrillo Rhode Island

craig dipetrillo properties

Real Estate Innovators: Disruptive Models and Forward Thinkers like Craig DiPetrillo Rhode Island

Innovation in Modern Real Estate

In the bustling world of real estate, the impetus for change continues to be the beacon of innovation. This dynamic force constantly reshapes age-old models, paving the way for fresh paradigms that undeniably transform the way we perceive and interact with property. Visionary leaders and disruptors in this space tirelessly push the envelope, introducing groundbreaking concepts and cutting-edge technologies that radically redefine how we purchase, sell, and inhabit properties. One such innovator, Craig Dipetrillo Rhode Island, stands out amidst this vibrant ecosystem. With a solid background spanning over three decades in architectural, engineering, and interior design, Craig's expertise is evident in the successful execution of various construction projects. His company, DiPetrillo Properties, specializes in investments and construction within the real estate industry, taking on the challenges posed by private, local, and state governments with ease. Often referred to as a 'bridge' of communication, his integral role in strategic planning, monitoring, and investing has had an undeniable impact in converting potential obstacles into opportunities for growth and development.

Rethinking Traditional Approaches

Craig DiPetrillo Rhode Island as president of DiPetrillo Properties, has been contributing his rich professional experience of more than three decades in architecture, engineering, and interior design to the real estate business. His company specializes in real estate investments and construction, with himself deeply involved in strategic planning and monitoring of construction projects. His ability to navigate through the complexities that private, local, and state governments often present in real estate projects is exemplary, earning him the moniker of a 'bridge' of communication. Despite the inherent challenges, these activities are not merely routine tasks for Craig. Instead, they form an integral part of his commitment to the real estate industry. An industry historically known for its reluctance to stray from conventional practices, is currently undergoing a significant transformation. This paradigm shift within the industry is driven by a handful of innovators like Craig DiPetrillo. These individuals are challenging long-established norms and introducing disruptive models that prioritize efficiency, accessibility, and sustainability. In the heart of such change, Craig DiPetrillo Rhode Island stands tall, demonstrating that it is indeed possible to maintain high standards of professionalism and integrity while still being an agent of disruptive change in the real estate industry.

One of the notable disruptions comes from the reconfiguration of the home-buying process. Innovators have leveraged technology to streamline transactions, making them more transparent and user-friendly. From virtual property tours to blockchain-powered smart contracts, these advancements enhance convenience while minimizing complexities associated with traditional purchasing methods.

Moreover, the rise of co-living and co-working spaces showcases a departure from the conventional concept of property ownership. Shared living spaces, designed to foster community and affordability, are gaining traction among younger demographics and urban dwellers seeking flexibility and a sense of belonging.

Embracing Technological Advancements

In the dynamic landscape of real estate, technology has established itself as a keystone of innovative advancements. Ground-breaking technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), and the Internet of Things (IoT) are causing a paradigm shift in the way real estate properties are marketed, managed, and maintained. These emerging technologies are not only facilitating efficient operations but are also providing avenues for enhanced customer experiences and smart investments. From virtual property tours that leverage AR, to IoT-enabled smart homes that optimize energy consumption, and AI-powered bots assisting in property management, technology is paving the way for a new era in real estate. Amidst this tech-driven revolution, seasoned professionals like Craig DiPetrillo Rhode Island are employing these advanced tools to strategize, monitor, and invest in construction projects, ensuring the successful execution of real estate endeavors in the evolving market.

Artificial intelligence, for instance, has enabled predictive analytics, empowering real estate professionals to forecast market trends and make data-driven decisions. This technology optimizes pricing strategies, enhances customer experiences, and facilitates personalized property recommendations, ultimately streamlining the entire real estate lifecycle.

Furthermore, augmented reality (AR) has redefined property showcasing. Prospective buyers can now immerse themselves in virtual property tours, experiencing homes and spaces remotely with an unparalleled level of realism. This innovation not only saves time and resources but also expands the reach of property listings to a global audience.

The integration of IoT devices within properties has also gained momentum, offering smart solutions for energy efficiency, security, and convenience. From smart thermostats to connected security systems, these technologies not only enhance the quality of life for inhabitants but also increase property value and appeal.

Sustainability and Future-Centric Approaches

Visionaries like Craig DiPetrillo Rhode Island are championing the cause of sustainability. The increasing awareness of our environmental responsibility has brought sustainable construction methodologies, eco-friendly materials, and energy-saving designs to the forefront of property development endeavors.

Innovative projects are emerging, aiming for carbon neutrality and net-zero energy consumption. These developments prioritize renewable energy sources, incorporate eco-friendly materials, and implement smart infrastructure to minimize environmental impact while offering residents a sustainable lifestyle.

Moreover, the concept of adaptive reuse, refurbishing existing structures for new purposes, is gaining prominence. Innovators are creatively repurposing old buildings, transforming them into modern, functional spaces that contribute to the preservation of architectural heritage while meeting contemporary needs.

The real estate industry is undergoing a transformative phase, propelled by disruptive models and forward-thinking innovators. By reimagining traditional approaches, embracing technological advancements, and adopting sustainability as a guiding principle, these visionaries are shaping the future of real estate, ushering in an era of unprecedented possibilities and redefining the way we perceive, interact with, and inhabit properties.

[mortonmattd]

Amazing Historical Events That Occurred on 5/4🎉 #shorts #history

Welcome to an exciting journey through history! On May 4th, significant events have taken place that have shaped the world we live in today. Join us as we explore some of the most incredible and awe-inspiring occurrences that have happened on this day.Let's start with the Council of Constance in 1415. This was a significant event in the history of Christianity as religious reformers John Wycliffe and Jan Hus were condemned as heretics. This event marked a turning point in the religious landscape of Europe and set the stage for the Protestant Reformation that would occur centuries later.

Moving on to 1634, Johan van Walbeeck's fleet set sail for the West Indies. This was a crucial moment in the history of the Dutch West India Company as they established a new colony in Curacao. The Dutch influence in the Caribbean would have a lasting impact on the region's culture and economy.

In 1776, Rhode Island declared its independence from Great Britain. This event marked a significant milestone in the American Revolution as the thirteen colonies fought for their freedom and sovereignty. Rhode Island's declaration of independence paved the way for other colonies to follow suit and ultimately led to the birth of the United States of America.

Fast forward to 1864, and we witness General Ulysses S. Grant leading his Union Army to attack Robert E. Lee's Confederates at Rappahannock River. This was a critical moment in the Civil War as the Union Army gained a strategic advantage over the Confederates. This victory paved the way for the eventual defeat of the Confederacy and the reunification of the United States.

Finally, in 1904, Charles Rolls and Henry Royce met at the Midland Hotel in Manchester, England, and went on to form the renowned car manufacturer, Roll-Royce. This event marked the beginning of a new era in the automobile industry and transformed the way we travel and transport goods.

In conclusion, May 4th has been witness to some of the most significant events in history that have shaped the world we live in today. Join us as we delve deeper into these remarkable stories and discover the impact they have had on our lives.

[catonatrain]

hello my golden retriever is losing but that is okay that will not stop me from wanting to talk about him !! so if u want to root for the underdog then please consider cheering him on!!

but for those curious about who this golden retriever is then im here to tell u!!

[Image ID: Headshot of Tequila who is looking towards the viewers over his shoulder. Other operators are in the background. End ID]

my essay under the cut :)

so tequila is from the game arknights -- a post-apocalyptic world where frequent natural disasters leave behind a mineral known as originium, which with too much exposure, can infect you with the disease known as "oripathy." however, i like to call it rock disease :> there's cities that move around to avoid these disasters!! lots of fighting happens and some people can use the world's equivalent to magic-- arts

anyways, so everyone in this world is essentially is an animal or mythological creature in some way. we have a literal talking emperor penguin for one. as for tequila or ernesto salas here-- he's a golden retriever!!

[Image ID: Chibi of Tequila in his default outfit. End ID]

look at this little chibi of him :) he is pocket sized

now you're probably wondering what's the deal with his two names? well his real name is ernesto salas. tequila is his codename that he picked out himself-- that's because in arknights, all the playable characters join the pharmaceutical company that's trying to deal with this uncurable disease (amongst other things)

so what's tequila's story? to put it very simply, he was a child soldier and all of that -- grew up in a country full of war

his family eventually moved to the city of two suns!! dossoles!! a seaside town that's a popular tourist destination!! it's also a bit corrupt, freely allowing criminal activity + encouraging gambling to make a profit -- after years of living in the city, tequila's father wished to wake up the citizens of the city to the harsh reality of the country they all call home by attacking the city and hoping to take control

[Image ID: Overview image of Dossoles. Most notable are the giant dog statue that resembles the Jesus statue in Rio de Janeiro, the large sea, and the large cruise ship in the large sea. End ID]

and now tequila, out of loyalty to his family, chooses to follow his father, but ultimately had to execute the plan in a certain way. he had to create panic, he had to put the mayor of the city under stress, but he was "not interested in creating a moving heap of rubble. Nor did he want corpses strewn everywhere." and so he made sure to target areas that had essentially no people.

at the end, his father's plans are thwarted, but the mayor of the city ultimately pardoned tequila and others (tequila's father definitely faced more consequences) -- and so he had to choose what to do next... and ultimately he joined rhodes island, the pharmaceutic company i mentioned earlier!! as his file says:

"Now, the youth have convinced themselves that they've freed themselves from the will and control of the previous generation, and are determined to pave their own way."

he still has a long way to go until he finds his path, but for now he will use his easygoing attitude, hearty smile, and friendly attitude when interacting with others and solve disputes!! he may never openly show negative emotion-- which concerns others-- but i believe he will get there !!

i will end this essay with some tequila fun facts :]

he runs a weapons shop now !! since rhodes island also has a moving base, he can meet lots of new customers

he's good at introducing wines and drinks that suit your taste if he visits the bar you're visiting

he has a younger sister!! she's adopted and a bird... and she calls him hermano :)

i got this game because of him my friend showed me him and then it was over for me

[Image ID: Chibi of Tequila in a fancy outfit. He is holding a dessert in one of his hands. He is sticking his tongue out. End ID]

anyways here is my final tequila... a little cafe tequila... thank you if u got this far !! i hope if anything u find a little more interest in arknights !! there's a lot to say about that world as tequila's story is only one tiny story in the grand scheme of things :>

Round 2

[image ID: the first image is of Cujo from Danny Phantom, a small, glowing green dog with a purple tongue, red eyes, and black ears. he's wearing a spiked collar. the second image is of Tequila, a man with blond hair and a blond tail. he's wearing a light gray hooded jacket with blue trim, a blue tank top, gray knee length shorts, and sandals. he has several necklaces and bracelets, goggles on his forehead, and is carrying a sword like weapon. running beside him is a golden retriever wearing goggles and yellow pack on its back. they're running across rocks jutting up from the ocean, with seagulls flying around them. end ID]

[dsknsk]

General overview of Rhine

Oh god Rhine FINALLY gets some attention. It’s not much but it’s something alright. It’s about time HG stops obsessing over Kazimierz and Aegir/Iberia.

This does not contain all information about Rhine. It just compares and collates the new information with the stuff we know. This is quite a long post, so if you want, turn on this music while reading.

According to the new video, Rhine Lab consists of 10 sections. 

Components Control Section

Structural Section

Energy Section

Ecological Section

Business Section

Engineering Section

Human Resources Investigation Section

Defense Section

Scientific Investigation Section

Originium Art Section

The five to the right are the scientific research sections, and the four to the left are the general affair sections.

That aside, Saria’s skin speaks of a Research Branch and a General Jurisdiction Branch, a conflict between them and her participating in it. This may refer to these.

Components Control

The big square in the middle. It’s the core of the company.

Kirsten Wright - Her sprite first appeared in Dorothy’s Vision, and her personal details were not shared in the introductory video (and her sprite was obscured back then). She has a Phd in Particle Physics and is the co-founder together with Saria. She is the current head director in control, who also butted heads with Saria for some time. Currently, whatever’s between Saria and Kirsten is...interesting. The video says that she paved the way for Rhine and she has excellent entrepeneurship. 

Kirsten literally doesn’t remember the entire scuffle involving Ifrit at all (or at least claims so). She likely just began signing everything without even looking into it due to her priorities.

Kirsten’s codename is Control. She has lofty goals - her ultimate goal is uncovering Terra’s fake sky and exploring what’s beyond, as her parents were aeronauts who died in a test flight incident - in such a way that they overshadow ‘mundane’ goals, and isn’t at all concerned with controlling anything at this point. While it was assumed she was in danger during the events of Dorothy’s Vision, she wasn’t and was in a position to stop Ferdinand at all time.

Also, the fact that she’s a Perro and wants to go to space might very well reference Laika (even though she’s not based off the same dog physically).

Structural Division Section

This section analyzes the structure of which living beings consist of. It also conducts structural studies on biological molecules.

Ahrens Parvis - Director of the Structural division. First mentioned by Muelsyse in Mansfield Break, confirming that Silence was his protege. Silence also calls him her mentor (and Parvis still greets Silence cordially, even with the disapproval of the latter). According to Silence, he had no hand in Anthony’s prison break and did not know of it. He is an expert in this field and has experience for over 40 years. It’s said that he is a gentleman and has extreme persistence when it comes to research goals. From this visual, we can see that he’s a Caprinae, 168cm tall and from Leithania. 

This was also the guy who insisted on continuing the experiment with Ifrit all the way, as he saw the scientific progress he perceived as way more important than individual lives. In his view, giving your life for science is admirable. 

During Dorothy’s Vision, he stayed neutral, deciding to side with whatever side was the victor.

Olivia Silence - Former protege of Ahrens Parvis, the director of the Structural division. Currently serves as a Medic operator in Rhodes Island, using her last name as a codename. 

Silence was closely involved with the Flame Demon Incident. She couldn’t agree with Parvis’ ways anymore and decided to fake Ifrit’s death. This failed, however, and Saria - whom she once looked up to - was forced to nearly kill Ifrit. She did leave Rhine after all, however, joining Rhodes Island as well.

Joyce Moore - Tentatively placed here. A data analyst part of Olivia Silence’s medical team. Currently works as a Medic operator under the codename of Ptilopsis. She agreed with an experiment that would let her essentially become a human CPU to interpret Originium signals (Device #9). This experiment went awry, forced them to implement a chip inside her head that caused her to hear a certain voice.

Ptilopsis was not that involved in the Flame Demon Incident, due to herself undergoing a long treatment at Parvis’ suggestion, but has knowledge of the Incident. She is not allowed to talk about it due to the non-disclosure agreement.

Energy Section

This section studies/exploits originium, sunlight, geothermy, biothermy, as biological resources. It also researches the storage and applications of all kinds of energy. This section was behind HydeBro, in that HydeBro used Energy’s resources to try to assassinate Anthony.

Ferdinand Clooney - Mentioned in Mansfield Break. In there, he is referred to with and without name - when he is mentioned by name, his first is used. He had a hand in HydeBro coming after Anthony. Because the Energy section is close with Engineering, Silence initially kept this secret from Mayer. Mayer is scared of Ferdinand, though, and according to her, ‘[He] leave[s] quite an expression when [he] talk[s], but it still feels [...] like [he] care[s] more about the stuff we make and the value of that than about us ourselves’. This matches with what is said - he is agressive and confident in his approach to gain resources. From this visual, we see that he’s a Feline, 182cm tall, and born in Columbia.

This dude tried a whole lot during Dorothy’s Vision. He was intending to use the technology in use by Dorothy as a superweapon, even trying to usurp Kirsten but this plan got thwarted along with Dorothy’s, so he was eventually kicked out of Rhine. 

He was also the mentor of Astgenne.

Elena Urbica - Former protege of Ferdinand Clooney. Currently serves as a Caster operator at Rhodes Island under the codename of Astgenne, her birthname. She took on the name ‘Elena’ herself. She transferred to Rhodes Island after her work at Rhine was frozen without any possibility to restart.

Originium Art Section

This section deals with the principles (they made a spelling error here) and application of Originium Arts.

Dorothy Franks - The director of the Originium Art Section. From this visual, we see that she’s a Zalak (jerboa-based), 170cm tall and born in Columbia. Her personality is completely opposite from Ferdinand, being idealistic and determined. She wants to eliminate individual differences when it comes to handling Originium Arts.

Even though her ‘for science’ mindset is stated to be milder than the other named Rhine Lab scientists, she is still a force to be reckoned with. In her introductory event alone, she made a construct and intended to send everyone into it with their collective consciousness, as a place where everyone was equal and no one had to suffer. At the end of this event, she took this construct down, also preventing Ferdinand’s plans.

Currently serves as a Specialist operator at Rhodes Island with her codename being her first name.

Ecology Section

This section deals with evolution of Terra’s creatures, and how that relates to the environment.

Muelsyse - The director of the Ecology Section. We’ve met her formally in Mansfield Break after she first showed up in Operational Intelligence, preventing an outburst from Ifrit. She was also mentioned in Magallan’s files. Her nickname is MuMu, something Ifrit and Magallan both call her. She is highly implied to have an own agenda, but supports the control within Rhine. Her special talent is the creation and control of water, by manipulating the molecules in the air. She also utilizes this to make believable clones (as the human body mostly exists out of water). She is the only one who uses just one name at all, and her race as well as her birthplace are censored (likely to protect us from knowing more about the elf race). At least this says that she is 169cm tall. According to the voice, her name is pronounced ‘Mewl-seas’ (contrasting how I’ve been pronouncing it, which was roughly ‘Mo-ehl-sea-say’).

Muelsyse is currently the only known elf on Terra. It’s said that the race is dwindling.

Will likely join Rhodes Island to serve as a combat operator in an unknown class.

Scientific Investigation Section

This section investigates areas like the outmost borders of Terra. It wants to ‘bring back the unknown’. Currently, it is stationed in Northern Sami.

Magallan - It is very likely that Magallan works in this section. She currently works under a coorporation agreement with Rhodes Island, serving as a Supporter operator. Knows both Ifrit and Muelsyse, to the point that they had nicknames for eachother.

General Affairs Sections

The other four Sections are not given a director. Instead, they’re briefly described.

Business Section 

Does public affairs and communication.

Defense Section

Does R&D, related personnel security, informations disclosure and emergency handling. Mayer says that it is quite different from all other Sections.

Saria - Co-founder alongside Kirsten. Former Director of the Defense Section. Currently works as a Defender operator in Rhodes Island with her first name as a codename. Anthony’s escape is implied to take place right before she became one. 

She was closely involved with the Flame Demon Incident. After the failed attempt to fake Ifrit’s death, Saria had to engage Ifrit in a manner that nearly killed the girl. The bond between the three is strained as of currently, but as they are on Rhodes Island, they have opportunity to work things out slowly.

Engineering Section

Does mechanical design and the robotics of the R&D equipment. According to Mayer, the section is ‘generally only responsible for providing equipment or putting forward professional opinion when constructing said equipment [and they] don't really take initiative to understand the experiment itself’.

Lutra Studio - Mayer. She worked under this section, but left and became a Supporter operator at Rhodes Island. According to her, she left because she became less and less free to do her own thing from the moment that Engineering grew close to the Energy department. She does not know the exact details of the Incident, but she is aware of its results.

Human Resources Investigation Section

Does Human Resources management. Predictable.

Other members

Astesia Urbica - A philological consultant. Currently a Guard operator at Rhodes Island. Her sister Elena came with her to Rhodes for treatment. Said sister also works at Rhine.

Speculative members

Sesa - It is highly likely that either he, his brother or even both of them were part of Rhine Lab at some point or worked together with them. This remains mere speculation but there are some aspects to him that imply this. They are too in-depth and numerous to explain here, however.

[she-who-fights-and-writes]

May you give some tips on how to write about mid-nineteenth century and early twentieth century ?? Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks if there is an answer or not xd 😅 greetings and take good care :) :D

Okay, so I only really know about AMERICAN mid-nineteenth and early 20th century history, so I hope that’s what you mean!!

How to Write About The Mid-Nineteenth/ Early Twentieth Century America

This post will encompass 1850-1920 in America only. A lot of things happened during this period, so I’m going to try to outline it as best I can! This post is gonna be a long one, so I put all of the specifics under the cut:

Overview:

The Industrial Revolution hits. We begin this era with horse-drawn carriages and end with planes, tanks, and cars.

Expansion west, “Manifest Destiny”

The Civil War ends slavery in the United States

The Gilded Age marks an era of unbridled capitalism and robber barons, while the Progressive Era following it marks an age of activism and human rights.

13th Amendment in 1865 abolishes slavery, 14th and 15th Amendments in 1868 and 1870 gives Black people the right to vote, 19th Amendment in 1920 gives women the right to vote.

World War I marks a major advancement in technology and global affairs, sets the stage for the second world war that will come later.

The Roaring 20s provides a façade of success to precede the gigantic stock market crash of 1929.

I’ve copied and pasted a lot of this information directly from America’s Best History and added tidbits of my own as well!

1. The 1850s

Presidents:

Zachary Taylor (1849-1850)

Millard Fillmore (1850-1853)

Franklin Pierce (1853-1857)

James Buchanan (1857-1861)

Important Events:

- Peak point of tension between North and the South, primarily over which states will be admitted as free states or slave states.

- The Compromise of 1850 admits California as the 31st state, without slavery, and adds Utah and New Mexico as territories with no decision on the topic. The Fugitive Slave Law is strengthened under the Compromise, which also ended the slave trade in the District of Columbia.

-1854 - The Republican Party is founded, in opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. (Note: This form of “Republican” is essentially modern-day Democrats. The parties switched platforms later.)

-The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 allows the issue of slavery to be decided by a vote of settlers. This established the territories of Kansas and Nebraska and would breed much of the rancor that culminated in the actions of the next years of "Bleeding Kansas."

2. The 1860s

Presidents:

James Buchanan (1857-1861)

Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865)

Andrew Johnson (1865-1869)

Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877)

Important Events:

-1860- The Pony Express begins. Overland mail between Sacramento, California and St. Joseph's, Missouri is carried over the Oregon Trail for eighteen months by this series of riders on horseback, then rendered obsolete when the transcontinental telegraph is completed.

- 1860 - South Carolina is the first southern state to secede from the Union in response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President.

-The Homestead Act of 1862 is approved, granting family farms of 160 acres to settlers, many of which were carved from Indian territories. This promotes expansion West, and eventually led to the establishment of the state university systems.

- The Civil War 1861 – 1865

Overview: Union won due to their advanced railroad system and industrialization that provided them with clothing and other supplies. South is ransacked by General Sherman, brings about era of Reconstruction. Slavery is abolished, but former slaves are not immediately emancipated.

People to know:

Abe Lincoln (President of the Union)

Ulysses S. Grant (Union General, future President)

William Sherman (Union General)

Jefferson Davis (President of the Confederacy)

Robert E. Lee (Confederate General)

Stonewall Jackson (Confederate General)

 Important Events/Battles:

Fort Sumter 1861- A fort in Charleston, South Carolina harbor is bombarded by Confederate forces after the U.S. Army commander failed to evacuate, thus triggering a declaration of war.

Battle of Bull Run 1861- First official battle in Manassas, Virginia. Confederates emerge victorious as picnicking (yes, you read that right. People were picnicking and using the battle as entertainment) onlookers watch on in horror; realization that this war won’t be resolved quickly or easily.

Emancipation Proclamation is issued by Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862 stated that all slaves in places of rebellion against the Federal Government would be free.

Battle of Shiloh 1862- Victory of Union over Confederacy. Led by Ulysses S. Grant.

Battle of Antietam 1862- Bloodiest day of the war in Sharpsburg, Maryland. 

Gettysburg 1863- Considered the turning point of the war. The furthest Southern incursion into the North, where the Union beats back the attacking Confederate troops. A few weeks after the war, Lincoln issues the Gettysburg Address (“Four score and seven years ago…”).

The South Surrenders on April 2nd, 1865

- April 9th, 1865 - Abe Lincoln is assassinated at Ford Theatre by John Wilkes Booth. Andrew Johnson takes his place, and he does not keep up Reconstruction and withdrew all troops from the South so they could be left to their own devices. This is said to be the reason for segregation.

- 1866 -The KKK is formed  to prevent Black people from voting. Things such as poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and literacy tests are implemented by states to also discourage Black people from voting as well.

-  1867 -Alaska is purchased from Russia for $7.2 million dollars, approximately two cents per acre, by signing the Treaty of Cession of Russian America to the United States.

- 1869- The final golden spike of the transcontinental railroad is driven into the ground, marking the junction of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads. This act, as much as any other, would signal the marked increase in the settlement of the west.

3. The 1870s

Presidents:

Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877)

Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881)

Important Events:          

-The Gilded Age begins. Characterized by gross materialism and blatant political corruption that gave rise to important novels of social and political criticism.

-1870 - Standard Oil Company is incorporated by John D. Rockefeller.

-1870 - The first African-American to be sworn into office in the United States Congress, Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi takes his place in the United States Senate.

- 1870 - The 15th Amendment is ratified. It gave the right to vote to Black Americans. Race would officially no longer be a ban to voting rights, though it continues to be an issue in Southern states.

- 1871 - The great fire of Chicago starts. The fire burned 1.2 million acres of land, destroyed 17,450 buildings, killed 250 people, and left 90,000 homeless.

- 1876 - The Battle of Little Big Horn occurs when Lt. Colonel George Custer and his 7th U.S. Cavalry engage the Oceti Sakowin and Cheyenne Indians on the bluffs above the Little Big Horn River. All 264 members of the 7th Cavalry and Custer perish in the battle, the most complete rout in American military history.

- 1877 - Crazy Horse surrenders to the United States Army in Nebraska. His people had been weakened by cold and hunger.

- 1878 - The first commercial telephone exchange is opened.

- 1878 - Thomas Edison patents the cylinder phonograph and the Edison Electric Company begins operation

4. The 1880s

Presidents:

James A. Garfield (1881-1881)

Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885)

Grover Cleveland (1885-1889)

Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893)

Important Events:

- 1881 - Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company.

-1882 - The Standard Oil Company trust of John D. Rockefeller is formed when Rockefeller places all of his oil holdings inside it.

- 1883 - The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act is passed by Congress, overhauling federal civil service and establishing the U.S. Civil Service agency.

- 1884 - The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in the U.S.A. call for an eight-hour workday.

- 1885 - The Statue of Liberty arrives for the first time in New York harbor.

- 1886 - The Haymarket riot and bombing occurs in Chicago three days after the start of a general strike in the United States that pushed for an eight-hour workday.

- 1887 - Congress passes the Interstate Commerce Act to regulate and control the monopolies of the railroad industry.

- 1888 - The prototype for the commercial phonograph is completed by Thomas A. Edison

- 1888 - The Washington Monument officially opens to the general public.

5. The 1890s

Presidents:

Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893)

Grover Cleveland (1893-1897)

William McKinley (1897-1901)

Important Events:

- The rise of Imperialism.

- 1890 - The Battle of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, occurs in the last major battle between United States troops and Native Americans. Hundreds of native men, women, and children are slain.

- 1892 - Ellis Island, in New York Harbor, opens as the main east coast immigration center, and would remain the initial debarkation point for European immigrants into the United States until its closure in 1954. More than 12 million immigrants would be processed on the island during those years.

- 1892- Nativist sentiments rise with the immigration of Southern and Eastern Europeans flooding into the country. Italian, Polish, Russian, and other immigrants face significant discrimination.

- 1895 - The first professional football game is played in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

- 1896 - Plessy vs Ferguson decision by the Supreme Court states that racial segregation is approved under the "separate but equal" doctrine. This paves the way for Jim Crow laws in the South.

- 1896 - The first modern Olympic Games is held in Athens, Greece.

- 1896 - Gold is discovered near Dawson, Canada, setting up the Klondike Gold Rush

- 1897 - The era of the subway begins when the first underground public transportation in North America opens in Boston, Massachusetts. 

-1897- The Progressive Era begins

- 1898 – The Spanish- American War begins. It lasts one year and ends in U.S. victory. It was triggered by United States battleship Maine exploding and sinking under unknown causes in Havana Harbor, Cuba, killing two hundred and sixteen seamen. 

- 1898 - The United States annexes the independent republic of Hawaii.

- 1899 - The Open Door Policy with China is declared by Secretary of State John Hay

9. The 1900s

Presidents:

William McKinley (1897-1901)

Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909)

William Howard Taft (1909-1913)

Important Events:

- 1901 - The American League of Major League Baseball is formed.

- 1902 - The first movie theatre in the United States opens in Los Angeles, California.

- 1902 - Cuba gains independence from the United States.

- 1903 - Inventors Wilbur and Orville Wright succeed in the first sustained and manned plane flight.

- 1906 - The Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act is passed due to the efforts of “muckrakers” that worked to expose corruption. “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair, which described the horrible conditions in the meatpacking industry, helped sponsor outrage that would get these laws passed.

- 1908 - The first passenger flight on a plane occurs when Wilbur Wright escorts Charles W. Furnas in the Wright Flyer III at Huffman Prairie Flying Field in Dayton, Ohio.

- 1908- The first production Model T is built at the Ford plant in Detroit, Michigan.

10. The 1910s

Presidents:

William Howard Taft (1909-1913)

Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)

Important Events:

- 1911 - Standard Oil is declared a monopoly by the United States Supreme Court and ordered dissolved under the powers of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

- 1913 - The first moving assembly line is introduced and adopted for mass production by the Ford Motor Company, allowing automobile construction time to decrease by almost 10 hours per vehicle.

- 1915 – The first telephone conversation is conducted by Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas A. Watson between New York and San Francisco.

- 1915 - The British ship Lusitania is sunk by a German U-boat submarine, causing 128 American passengers to be lost. Germany, although it warned of the pending crises to passengers, issued an apology to the United States and promised payments.

- 1918 - The influenza epidemic Spanish flu spans the globe, killing over twenty million worldwide and five hundred and forty-eight thousand people in the United States.

- World War I 1917-1918

Overview: After three years spent remaining neutral, the United States joins World War I. The U.S. made its major contributions in terms of supplies, raw material, and money, and its joining into the war helped to turn the tides against the Germans and Ottomans.

People to know:

Woodrow Wilson (President)

John J. Pershing (General)

Important Events/Battles

The United States declares war on Germany in 1917 after the Zimmermann Telegram is given to the United States by Britain on February 24, showing the offer by Germany to give Mexico back the southwest United States if they would declare war on the United States.

June 26th, 1917 - The first troops from the United States arrive in Europe to assist European allies in World War I. Troops engaged in World War I would include conscript soldiers authorized by the passage of the Conscription Act, the Selective Services Act, on May 18, 1917. General John Pershing would be placed in command of the American Expeditionary Forces during the campaign.

1918 - The United States military forces has over one million troops in Europe fighting in World War I.

May 28, 1918- United States forces are victorious in the Battle of Cantigny, the first independent American operation.

September 26, 1918- Allied forces begin the attack at Meusse-Argonne, the final offensive of the war.

November 11, 1918 - Hostilities in World War I begin to end with the Austria-Hungary alliance for armistice with the allies on November 3. Armistice Day with Germany occurs when the Allies and the German nation sign an agreement in Compiegne, France. Woodrow Wilson would become the first U.S. President to travel to Europe while in office when he sails to attend the Paris Peace Conference on December 4.

1919 - The Treaty of Versailles is signed, ending World War I.

- 1919- The 18th Amendment is passed, bringing about the era of Prohibition

11. The 1920s

Presidents:

Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)

Warren G. Harding (1921-1923)

Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929)

Herbert Hoover (1929-1933)

Important events:

-1920 - The League of Nations is established with the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, ending the hostilities of the first World War. In a final vote, the United States Senate again votes against joining the League.

- 1920 - Women are given the right to vote when the 19th Amendment to the United States constitution grants universal women's suffrage.

- 1920 - The National Football League is formed

- 1921 - A national quota system on the number of incoming immigrants is established by the United States Congress in the Emergency Quota Act, curbing legal immigration.

- 1923 - The first sound on film motion picture Phonofilm is shown in the Rivoli Theatre in New York City by Lee de Forest.

- 1924 - The Indian Citizenship Act granted all Native Americans citizenship that had been born within the territory of the United States.

- 1925 - Nellie Tayloe Ross is inaugurated as the first woman governor of the United States in Wyoming.

- 1925 - Radiovision is born. The precursor to television is demonstrated by Charles Francis Jenkins when he transmits a 10 minute film of synchronized pictures and sound for five miles from Anacostia to Washington, D.C. to representatives of the United States government.

- 1928 - The first appearance of Mickey and Minnie Mouse on film occurs with the release of the animated short film, Plane Crazy.

- 1928 - Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly over the Atlantic Ocean.

- 1929 - Postwar prosperity ends in the 1929 Stock Market crash. The plummeting stock prices led to losses between 1929 and 1931 of an estimated $50 billion and started the worst American depression in the nation's history.

Hope this helped, and happy writing!!!!!

[johannstutt413]

(requested by anonymous) 

Since attending the first official meeting of the Ursus Student Self-Governance Group on Rhodes Island’s campus, the Doctor had found himself in a situation no recently-awoken coma survivor would expect to find themselves: sponsoring a teenager-led rebellion. It hadn’t entirely been a choice on his part - he’d simply wanted to talk to Istina about a book she’d taken from his office - but after watching them at work, furiously working on what could only be called the plans for their future governance of Ursus, he realized the rare opportunity available to him. Many revolutions are led by younger people, true, but it’s a rare thing to have a revolution led by younger people who have been fighting since before their high school years, and with the kind of experience they had from escaping Chernobog originally...The Doctor saw them as more than a worthwhile investment, and being an Ursus himself, it wasn’t hard for him to convince them he could act as an advisor for them.

Besides, when they weren’t playing council, it was fun to hang out with them.

One day, Zima came to the Group meeting with a bottle of vodka and several shot glasses. “Gummy, fire up the stove! Today we’re gonna do something we haven’t done since forming this group of ours.”

“Oh?” Istina looked up from her beanbag and book as Gummy did, in fact, turn on her portable stove and set a pan on it to warm up. “And that would be?”

“Celebrate. You girls have been working hard, and it’s about time you acknowledged how far you’ve come.” That was the Doctor, bringing with him gifts in a great burlap sack he’d managed to get from Closure when buying all these things.

Istina glanced at the bag, then the alcohol, and lastly at the Doctor’s serious face. “You remember your demographic, right? We’re middle schoolers, not revolutionaries in a winter bunker.”

“You’re really going to turn down a drink?” Zima shrugged. “More for me and Doctor, then. Gummy, what about you?”

“Is it the same stuff you brought in last time? I don’t know, it made me really queasy last time.”

The Doctor laughed quietly, but it still resonated through the entire room. “The vodka is optional, but it is Ursus tradition, and even if the establishment has to go, our heritage is another thing altogether.”

“Hmm...” Istina set her bookmark in her current book from the Doctor’s library and carefully set it aside in her usual place. “Alright, just this once. We shouldn’t make a habit of celebrating moving steadily enough not to fall behind.”

“If you hadn’t been sprinting since you first came to RI, I would have stopped at the vodka,” he agreed, setting the present sack by the door.

Once Gummy had their celebratory meal prepared and all had something on their stomachs, the Doctor made sure everyone in the room had a shot and said his piece. “Ladies of the USS-GG, I’ve hijacked this meeting today to celebrate not only your achievements as an organization, but the hard work and dedication you’ve pushed to maintain to secure your accomplishments as more than temporary or pyrrhic victories. No war can be won in a day, and the war for the soul of our motherland began long before any of us were born, but we have taken up its call, and while my arrival was delayed, I’ll be damned if I’m taken off the frontline without a weapon in my hand. Cheers to a record of well-fought victories, and to the future of Ursus paved with ashes of the old regime. To the next generation!”

“To our generation!” The three girls cheered before each taking their first (and for all but Zima, their only) shot for the evening.

“Now,” the Doctor resumed, “before Zima pours the rest of the bottle down her throat, I’d like to give each of you a couple of things. RI held a collection, and we had the funds to get each of you something I think you’ll appreciate.”

Zima glanced from him to the bottle on the counter. “If it’s not a bigger glass, I’m not sure we need to open gifts right now.”

“Trust me, you’ll want to see this without double vision. Istina, this is yours; Gummy, right; Zima, there you are. You can decide amongst yourselves who opens theirs first.”

“Hmph.” The Winter General grunted. “I’ll go last. Gummy, you wanna open yours first?”

She’d already started peeling at the paper, so at the suggestion, she simply finished her work with a single swipe. “Let’s see, let’s see- Doctor, is this for real?”

“Yes, comrade Gummy, it is the genuine article.” He smiled as she opened the box to reach the deluxe-size portable stovetop inside. “Now you can have five pots and pans going at once during meetings without worrying about uneven heating.”

“Oh, Doctor, you’re too generous for words!” Gummy carefully skirted around her present to tackle him in a bear (cub) hug; he caught her with open arms and without being pushed back, a hearty chuckle escaping him as he did so.

Istina adjusted her glasses. “I’m quite curious what you could have gotten me that equals that, Doctor.” She pulled out a paper knife from a drawer in her desk and delicately cut away the paper wrapping of the large box she’d been given.

“You’re being rather delicate with it,” Zima observed. “Why not just cut it open and be done with it?”

“Because, General, I expect there to be at least one book in...side...” She’d opened the box, and what she found was substantially more than one book.

The Doctor, Gummy sitting on one of his legs, nodded as Istina’s excitement began to show. “The entire collections of twelve authors I noticed you had a particular liking of. Most of those are books I do not have, but all of those have yet to be opened.”

“I...I’ll be in your office most of the day for the rest of the month.” This was not a request. “There’s no other place in Rhodes Island quiet enough for the concentration I’ll need to finish this in a reasonable time frame...Oh, who am I kidding, I’d find a way.” She slid the box under her desk before bounding up and sitting next to the Doctor, hugging the arm Gummy didn’t have a hold of. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“I cannot take full credit; the money for your gifts was the work of Rhodes Island as a group...most of mine went to Zima’s, I must admit.”

She examined the box for a moment before simply punching through the cardboard and paper to the item beneath; at its center, it seemed to be the handle for something. “This wouldn’t happen to be a new hammer, would it? I like the one I have.”

“Not a hammer,” he confirmed. “This is less a weapon and more of a symbolic gesture.”

“A symbol of what?” As Zima broke through the rest of the box, she realized what he meant. What had seemed to be a handle was, in fact, a flagpole...They’d gotten them a new flag: their group’s symbol against a bed of red, with a blue ring around the ring finger of the hand to signify Rhodes Island’s support.

The Doctor didn’t smile as the General took in the full ramifications of this gift. “General Zima, Rhodes Island recognizes the Ursus Student Self-Governance Group as sovereign. While your territory is occupied at the moment, rest assured, we will be applying our own forces to the war effort until the homeland is reclaimed under your banner. From that point, as the company’s lead negotiator, I promise you will have our full support and direct access to me for counsel and reinforcement. Furthermore, I have been given authorization to promote all three of you.”

“You have?!” Gummy’s grip around his arm tightened. “I can finally get a proper spice rack with the pay increase!”

“I can get a lamp so I don’t keep having to burn candles,” Istina noted, laying her head against the Doctor’s shoulder.

Zima sat for another moment, fighting back tears, before she regained enough composure to approach the Doctor - standing to close the distance, but falling onto her knees so she was at the right height to hug his neck. “Thanks, Papa.”

“You’re welcome, Grizzly Bear.” The other girls let go long enough for the Doctor to give Zima a proper hug. “Alright, come on, don’t be shy now.” At his invitation, Gummy and Istina rejoined the dogpile, and the Doctor toppled backwards much to their delight.

To the outside observer - specifically to Ethan, who was providing an invisible eye to the whole affair - there was no difference between this government council meeting and a father coming home with gifts for his children. And, as he distinctly mentioned in his report of the event, there wasn’t anything wrong with a father rewarding his kids for earning high marks.

[aunti-christ-ine]

Exclusive: Critical U.S. Election Systems Have Been Left Exposed Online Despite Official Denials

The top voting machine company in the country insists that its election systems are never connected to the internet. But researchers found 35 of the systems have been connected to the internet for months and possibly years, including in some swing states. 

By Kim Zetter  Aug 8 2019, 1:55pm

For years, U.S. election officials and voting machine vendors have insisted that critical election systems are never connected to the internet and therefore can’t be hacked.

But a group of election security experts have found what they believe to be nearly three dozen backend election systems in 10 states connected to the internet over the last year, including some in critical swing states. These include systems in nine Wisconsin counties, in four Michigan counties, and in seven Florida counties — all states that are perennial battlegrounds in presidential elections.

Some of the systems have been online for a year and possibly longer. Some of them disappeared from the internet after the researchers notified an information-sharing group for election officials last year. But at least 19 of the systems, including one in Florida’s Miami-Dade County, were still connected to the internet this week, the researchers told  Motherboard.

The researchers and Motherboard have been able to verify that at least some of the systems in Wisconsin, Rhode Island, and Florida are in fact election systems. The rest are still unconfirmed, but the fact that some of them appeared to quickly drop offline after the researchers reported them suggests their findings are on the mark.

“We ... discovered that at least some jurisdictions were not aware that their systems were online,” said Kevin Skoglund, an independent security consultant who conducted the research with nine others, all of them long-time security professionals and academics with expertise in election security. Skoglund is also part of an advisory group, not associated with the research, that is working with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop new cybersecurity standards for voting machines. “In some cases, [the vendor was] in charge [of installing the systems] and there was no oversight. Election officials were publicly saying that their systems were never connected to the internet because they didn't know differently."

The systems the researchers found are made by Election Systems & Software, the top voting machine company in the country. They are used to receive encrypted vote totals transmitted via modem from ES&S voting machines on election night, in order to get rapid results that media use to call races, even though the results aren’t final.

Generally, votes are stored on memory cards inside the voting machines at polling places. After an election, poll workers remove these and drive them to county election offices. But some counties want to get their results faster, so they use wireless modems, either embedded in the voting machines or externally connected to them, to transmit the votes electronically. The system that receives these votes, called an SFTP server, is connected to the internet behind a Cisco firewall.

For security reasons, the SFTP server and firewall are only supposed to be connected to the internet for a couple of minutes before an election to test the transmission, and then for long enough after an election to transmit the votes. But the researchers found some of the systems connected to the internet for months at a time, and year-round for others, making them vulnerable to hackers. 

Hacking the firewall and SFTP server would allow an attacker to potentially intercept the results as they’re transmitted and send fake results to the FTP server, depending on how securely the ES&S system authenticates the data. Although the election results that are transmitted via modem are unofficial — official votes are taken directly from the voting machine memory cards when they arrive at county offices — a significant discrepancy between the unofficial tallies and the official ones would create mistrust in the election results and confusion about which ones were accurate. 

But Motherboard has learned that connected to the firewalls are even more critical backend systems — the election-reporting module that tabulates the unofficial votes as well as the official ones, and the election-management system that is used in some counties to program voting machines before elections. The researchers said that gaining access through the firewall to these systems could potentially allow a hacker to alter official election results or subvert the election-management system to distribute malware to voting machines through the USB flash drives that pass between this system and the voting machines.

*

Online, the researchers can only see the firewalls configured in front of these systems and cannot see anything behind them — a federal law makes it illegal for them to probe beyond the firewall. But ES&S documents posted online in various counties show that these critical backend systems are connected to the firewall, and ES&S also confirmed to Motherboard that this is the correct architecture in counties that want to transmit results electronically. 

ES&S has long insisted that election-management systems are air-gapped — that is, not connected to the internet or connected to any other system that is connected to the internet — and the company insists to Motherboard that the diagram it provided isn’t showing them connected to the internet.

“There’s nothing connected to the firewall that is exposed to the internet,” Gary Weber, vice president of software development and engineering for ES&S, told Motherboard. “Our [election-management system] is not pingable or addressable from the public internet.” This makes them invisible to bad actors or unauthorized users, he said.

But Skoglund said this “misrepresents the facts.” Anyone who finds the firewall online also finds the election-management system connected to it.

“It is not air-gapped. The EMS is connected to the internet but is behind a firewall,” Skoglund said. “The firewall configuration [that determines what can go in and out of the firewall]… is the only thing that segments the EMS from the internet.”

And misconfigured firewalls are one of the most common ways hackers penetrate supposedly protected systems. The recent massive hack of sensitive Capital One customer data is a prime example of a breach enabled by a poorly configured firewall.

“If they did everything correctly [with the ES&S systems] as they say they do, there is no danger,” Robert Graham, CEO of Errata Security, told Motherboard. “These are all secure technologies that if [configured] correctly work just fine. It’s just that we have no faith that they are done correctly. And the fact that [election officials are] saying they aren’t on the internet and yet they are on the internet shows us that we have every reason to distrust them.”

Even proper configurations won’t secure a firewall if the firewall software itself has security vulnerabilities that allow intruders to bypass all the authentication checks, whitelisting rules, and other security parameters set in the firewall’s configuration file.

“If this system hasn’t been patched and has a critical vulnerability… you may be able to subvert any kind of security scheme that you’ve put in place,” Skoglund told Motherboard.

While no one is suggesting that any of these systems have been manipulated or hacked, the findings highlight how little local and federal election officials understand how these critical election systems are really configured and connected, and the extent to which they are beholden to what the vendors tell them.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) said the findings are “yet another damning indictment of the profiteering election vendors, who care more about the bottom line than protecting our democracy.” It’s also an indictment, he said, “of the notion that important cybersecurity decisions should be left entirely to county election offices, many of whom do not employ a single cybersecurity specialist.”

“Not only should ballot tallying systems not be connected to the internet, they shouldn’t be anywhere near the internet,” he added.

Wyden said two pieces of federal election security legislation that have stalled on Capitol Hill due to Republican leaders — the SAFE Act and a Wyden bill called the PAVE Act — would effectively ban transmission of votes via modem and prohibit connecting any election-reporting or election-management system to the internet or to a telecommunications network at any time.

The ES&S firewalls are configured to only allow authenticated systems to connect and pass data through the firewall to the SFTP server; they also block outbound connections to the internet from systems behind the firewall. Authenticated systems include modem-enabled voting machines at voting precincts, or a computer at regional transmission sites. But even these authenticated systems, armed with passwords to communicate with the SFTP server, can only communicate with that server and cannot reach past this to the critical backend systems, according to ES&S. The passwords for the voting machines to communicate with the SFTP server are generated by the election-management system and passed to the voting machines on a USB flash drive when the systems are programmed before each election, and the passwords are also stored on the SFTP server to authenticate the machines.

The two backend systems — the reporting system that tabulates votes and the election-management system — sit on a local area network, which is connected to the Cisco firewall through a switch. The switch doesn’t provide additional security; it simply acts as a traffic cop to direct incoming data to the right system. To collect the encrypted votes the voting machines have deposited on the SFTP server, the backend reporting system reaches through the firewall to query the server every few minutes. If new files have arrived, the reporting system grabs those, decrypts them to read the votes inside, then tabulates them.

At least this is how the configuration in the diagram ES&S provided Motherboard works. But a different diagram the company submitted last year to Travis County, Texas, as part of a contract proposal, and which is available online, shows the reporting system and election-management system directly connected to the SFTP server through the switch, and all of them are connected to the firewall. This would mean the backend reporting system could bypass the firewall to reach the SFTP server directly, a less secure configuration. Weber of ES&S told Motherboard the Travis diagram is incorrect.

The backend systems in the ES&S configuration are only protected if the firewall rules ES&S has set up for controlling traffic are configured correctly, if the firewalls have no unpatched software vulnerabilities that would let an intruder bypass those protections to install malware on the SFTP server and the critical backend systems, and if the firewalls are also consistently maintained and monitored for rogue connections.

Unfortunately, there are a number of reasons to be concerned about the security of the firewalls and SFTP servers.

ES&S installs and configures the firewalls for the “majority” of its customers, the company told Motherboard. Counties then take over the maintenance or contract it out to a third party, which may even be ES&S in some cases.

Last year, the Cisco firewalls in Wisconsin failed to receive a patch for a critical vulnerability until six months after the vulnerability had been made public and the patch was released, Motherboard has learned. Patch delays aren’t unusual in states that require their election systems to be state certified as well as federally certified — a patch that needs to be applied to a certified system generally has to be reviewed for compliance with the certification requirements before it can be applied. But six months is a long time, and this means the systems were vulnerable to attack during a lengthy period before the 2018 midterm elections.

Another maintenance issue involves slow software upgrades. The researchers on Skoglund’s team discovered that seven of the SFTP servers on the ES&S systems they found are using outdated Cerberus FTP Server 6.0 software that the software maker stopped supporting in January 2017. This means that for the last two and a half years, the maker of that software has not updated it, and going forward will not produce patches if any vulnerabilities in the software are found. The current version is 10.0, and despite the fact that it has been available since November 2018, none of the ES&S SFTP servers the researchers found online are running it.

Not every ES&S backend election system is connected to the internet, because not every county opts to transmit election results. There are more than 33,000 ES&S DS200 optical scan machines with modems in use across eleven states and the District of Columbia. But ES&S told Motherboard it doesn’t know how many of its customers currently transmit results.

What’s not generally known by the public about ES&S election systems is that the company’s entire configuration for transmitting election results — from the modem to the SFTP server — is not certified by the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), which oversees the testing and certification of voting equipment at the federal level. ES&S voting machines are tested and certified, but the transmission configuration isn’t. The labs test them for functionality to make sure they transmit votes, and that’s it. In marketing literature, ES&S highlights the certified parts of its election system in blue and labels them "EAC Certified Configuration." The uncertified part is highlighted in white and labeled "Extended Configuration."

Weber told Motherboard that instead of federal certification, his company has focused on working with officials in states that allow modem transmission to test and certify the configuration under their own state certification programs. He said this includes a security assessment of the configuration. Asked which states do these security assessments, he cited Wisconsin, Florida, and Minnesota. But someone familiar with Wisconsin’s certification testing, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Motherboard it doesn’t include a security assessment of the modem transmissions and configuration.

Hunting Election Systems 

The researchers began looking for connected systems in July of 2018 after seeing repeated comments from state and local election officials as well as federal officials with the Election Assistance Commission, that voting machines and backend election systems are never connected to the internet.

Although these officials acknowledge that many voting machines use modems to transmit election results over cellular networks and landline connections, they have long insisted that modem transmissions don’t involve the internet.  A New York Times story I wrote last year, however, showed that the modem transmissions do pass through the internet, and even an ES&S document that the company supplied to Rhode Island in 2015 calls the modem transmission of votes an “internet” transmission. A document for modem transmissions from voting machines made by Dominion Voting Systems — another top voting machine company in the country — similarly discusses TCP-IP and SSL, both protocols used for internet traffic.

“The configurations show TCP-IP configuration and ‘SSL Optional,’ making it clear that at least the vendors know their systems are connecting through the internet, even if their election official customers do not realize it or continue to insist to the public that the systems are not connected to the internet,” Skoglund said.

Knowing the vote transmissions are going over the internet, the researchers decided to see if they could find the backend internet-connected systems that receive the transmitted votes. They discovered a method of searching for connected ES&S systems after one of their group stumbled across the IP address for an ES&S firewall in Rhode Island in a publicly available document.

After combing through other documents for ES&S systems published online, and finding technical specifications that show the systems use Cisco ASA 5500 series firewalls, and Cerberus FTP software and Cisco AnyConnect VPN for the vote transmissions, they used a specialized search engine called Censys to find connected systems that matched this configuration combination. Censys scans the internet weekly for connected devices and catalogues information about them, including their IP address, in a database. Their search led them to 35 connected systems over the last year, though Skoglund notes that there may actually be more ES&S systems connected to the internet that are not visible to Censys scans, since administrators can configure their connected devices to block automated scans. This doesn’t mean, however, that someone can’t still find the systems online.

When examining the ownership records for the IP addresses of the connected systems, at least four of them were registered to county governments in Michigan and Florida. This helped bolster the researchers’ belief that what they had found were county election systems. The other IP addresses were harder to trace, however, since they were registered to large internet service providers, and not the ISP customers using them.

The researchers found one or two systems online in Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Iowa. The Nebraska system, they surmise, is probably a demo or test system for ES&S, which has its headquarters in Omaha. They also found two systems in Canada, where ES&S has field offices and customers, that may also be demo or test systems.

Although only one system was found online in Rhode Island, this one was particularly problematic, the researchers note. Rhode Island, unlike other states, conducts its elections from a centralized office at the state Board of Elections, instead of farming out election administration to each county or jurisdiction. The election reporting system the researchers found online, therefore, was the reporting system for the entire state.

One of the most dense states for online election systems was Florida, where the researchers found a number of connected systems that they believe belong to Bradford, Charlotte, Flagler, Wakulla, Miami-Dade, and Pasco counties, and one other county they’re unable to identity from the IP address.

Florida is known for its knuckle-biting elections. Trump won the state by just 1.2 percentage points in 2016, and in 2018 the state had senate and gubernatorial races that were too close to call on election night. Miami-Dade county in particular, with 1.4 million registered voters, is one of the most intensely watched counties in federal elections — it was using ES&S machines with embedded modems in the 2016 elections.

None of this implies that the election systems in Miami-Dade or any other Florida county were manipulated in the 2016 elections. But the findings highlight what is at stake with critical election systems online.

Any election system connected to the internet creates potential vulnerabilities for elections. But the nine systems in Wisconsin and four in Michigan that the researchers found raise particular red flags since these were two states among three where Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein sought a recount of the 2016 presidential votes. All three states, which included Pennsylvania, produced results that were contrary to election polls and prior state voting trends. Although there was no specific evidence suggesting the election systems had been manipulated, a recount could have helped provide assurance to the public that this wasn’t the case. A court, however, halted the Michigan recount after it began, and a Pennsylvania court declined to hear Stein’s case for a recount in that state.

Wisconsin’s recount was completed, but some counties that used optical scan machines didn’t do a true recount — they simply ran the paper ballots through the optical-scan machines a second time, instead of manually comparing them against the digital tallies to uncover discrepancies. If any problems existed in the scanner software to produce incorrect results during the first scan, they would reproduce the same incorrect results in the re-scan.

The researchers repeated their searches of the Censys database periodically to see when systems dropped out of visibility or new ones popped up online. This allowed them to see the systems connected for long periods of time, contrary to assertions by election officials that the systems for transmitting results only remain connected for a few minutes after elections. Some of the systems do pop up online only around election times, but they tend to remain online about a month before disappearing, not a few minutes.

“Rhode Island is one that kind of comes on and goes off,” Skoglund said. “They don’t stay on year round. But others do.”

Motherboard asked Errata Security CEO Graham, who created an internet-scanning tool called Masscan, to independently verify the methodology the researchers used to find the systems, and he confirmed that the method was sound, using the search parameters the researchers provided. Like the researchers, though, he was unable to explore further without breaking the law, so he could only see the firewalls and not what is behind them. An independent election security expert named Harri Hursti, who consults with election districts and helps run the annual Voting Machine Hacking Village at the Def Con security conference, also verified the methodology for Motherboard without being told how to find the systems. Hursti in fact told Motherboard that many other election systems are online that the researchers’ particular search parameters missed.

The researchers didn’t single out ES&S election systems for their hunt. They also attempted to search for connected systems for the other top two voting machine vendors in the country — Dominion Voting Systems and Hart InterCivic. But Skoglund said the configuration footprints for these systems are less distinctive than ES&S’s footprint, resulting in the team finding thousands of systems that were clearly not election infrastructure.

Although the researchers have not been able to confirm with elections officials in every state that all of the firewalls they spotted are connected to ES&S systems, they were able to verify enough of them that Skoglund says he feels confident their list is reliable. And all of the systems the researchers found share a configuration footprint that, as far as they can tell, is unique to ES&S systems. Furthermore, the IP addresses for the firewalls of the non-confirmed systems all appear to be in counties that also use ES&S voting machines, according to a crosscheck against a web tool operated by Verified Voting, a nonprofit that tracks voting machine use around the country. Although resolving IP addresses to precise geographical location is difficult to do, the researchers were able to pinpoint the addresses they found to a specific city or region in all cases except four of the systems.

ES&S did not dispute that the firewalls the researchers found are ES&S systems; the company said it had no way of knowing one way or the other. Motherboard offered to provide the company with the IP addresses the researchers found for the firewalls, but the company said in an email that it doesn’t store customer IP addresses and therefore wouldn’t be able to tell if the systems belong to its clients.

Because the researchers only began looking for the systems last year, it’s not known how long they’ve been online, but it’s likely that some have been connected to the internet for years, going back to whenever a county first began to use modems to transmit election results.

ES&S has been selling systems with modems to transmit results for more than a decade. Wisconsin approved the use of its current ES&S DS200 optical scan voting machines, with modem transmission capability, in September 2015, but its previous generation of ES&S optical scan machines also used modems for transmitting results. It’s not clear if they used the same firewall and backend configuration.

Although election security experts oppose electronically transmitting votes at all, if a county is going to do it, the equipment set up to receive the results should not be connected to the internet when the system is not being used. It serves no other purpose than to receive results.

“While the [reporting systems] are secure, ES&S recommends that they only be connected to the internet when they are being tested or in use in order to minimize possible threats,” a statement sent to Motherboard from ES&S and the Wisconsin Election Commission says.

But Hursti told Motherboard it makes little difference how long election systems are connected; any connectivity at all opens them to potential attacks.

“For a skillful, motivated attacker, it doesn’t matter much if [the system is connected] two minutes or a whole year. But for a less skilled fool, less motivated attacker, the fact that they are there for a year, it lowers the bar,” he told Motherboard. “It actually buries the bar under the ground to carry out attacks with less skill. [And] you have a way longer time when the hack can be carried out and the evidence of the attacks [hidden]. What you are describing is a bad behavior amplified by sloppiness and complete negligence of security.”

A more skilled and motivated hacker — such as a Russia-backed nation-state hacker — could potentially compromise the firewall or SFTP server and plant malware that gets delivered to each voting machine that communicates with the server, Skoglund and Hursti said. This is similar to what security professionals refer to as a “watering hole” attack, named after predatory animals who lie in wait at watering holes for prey to arrive to drink.

And if hackers could push malware to the voting machines from the SFTP server, the malware could potentially reconfigure the modem on those machines to make them dial out to a system the attackers own, while preventing any evidence of these calls from showing up on the system’s log. This would give attackers time to subvert the machines for subsequent elections.

Findings Reported and Confirmed 

The researchers reported the firewall IP addresses in August 2018 to the national Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC) — a 24-hour watch center funded by the Department of Homeland Security and operated by the Center for Internet Security, a nonprofit established to develop and promote best practices in cybersecurity. The EI-ISAC provides election officials with security threat information and warnings, and told the researchers they would pass the information to where it needed to go, but the researchers never got any follow-up from the EI-ISAC.

A spokesperson for the group would not tell Motherboard if the information was disseminated to the affected counties, but the researchers did see some county systems disappear from the internet. The Department of Homeland Security, which has been working with states and counties since 2016 to secure their election infrastructures, also declined to speak with Motherboard about the researchers’ findings.

The fact that half of the systems were still online last week, however, highlights how new efforts by the federal government and information-sharing groups to warn election officials about known threats and vulnerabilities don’t work if the message doesn’t get to the people who can actually take the systems offline or if local election officials simply don’t act on the information they receive. Last year the researchers gave four IP addresses to the EI-ISAC that the researchers confirmed were connected to election infrastructure in Michigan and Florida.

“The two in Florida were taken offline in the following week or two,” Skoglund said. But the systems in two Michigan counties, Kalamazoo and Roscommon, were still online this week. A third Michigan system is also online, though the researchers are unable to pinpoint the county in which the IP address is located.

Similarly, they reported half a dozen IP addresses to Tony Bridges, election security lead at the Wisconsin Election Commission, for connected systems in Outagamie, Dodge, Milwaukee, St. Croix, Columbia, and Waukesha counties. But despite initial friendly communication, Skoglund said they never received a response.

Bridges told Motherboard he did act on the information he received, advising all of the counties to disconnect their systems when not in use for elections. He was surprised to learn last week from Motherboard that there were still systems online. He contacted the counties again, and Skoglund’s group could see that all off them dropped off except Milwaukee County’s system and another county they had not reported to Bridges last year, Eau Claire County.

The director of elections in Milwaukee County told Skoglund this week that their system was online for a special election next week. Skoglund told Motherboard that when he told her the system had actually been online since September 2018, she said she only learned last week that the systems should not be connected to the internet between elections.

Skoglund has also witnessed another problems as systems dropped offline after his group’s disclosure to a county; some IT workers are simply turning off the SFTP server or switching it to standby mode so traffic can’t come into it. But as long as the firewall is online, the backend systems are still connected to the internet and can be found. And if the AnyConnect VPN is still enabled, this also provides a potential pathway into those backend systems.

Skoglund said he’s concerned that no one is monitoring all of these systems once they’re online, and that counties are trusting the configuration instructions ES&S gives them, or trusting ES&S to configure the systems securely for them, and are then ignoring the systems once they’re set up.

“When a corporation sets up a firewall and a VPN … there is someone who is applying patches and monitoring logs … and really actively ensuring the security of the device to make sure it doesn’t become a vulnerability,” Skoglund said. “That’s a real question with election infrastructure. Who manages this hardware after it’s deployed? And what oversight is there?”   ✜  

          ~*~*~  

  Source: Motherboard  

[wealthiesthub]

World’s Richest Family

The Koch family, with an estimated combined net worth of 100 billion dollars, is known to be one of the world’s richest families! The Koch family is American engaged in business. They are best known for their political activities and ownership of Koch Industries, America’s second-largest private company! So, what makes the Koch family different from the others? How did they get so rich? In this video, we will talk about how the Koch family paved their way to make a fortune.

Koch Family

The Koch family fortune got its start in 1925, when Fred Koch, American chemical engineer, and entrepreneur, joined the Keith-Winkler Engineering Company. He developed a new method for the refinement of heavy crude oil into gasoline. The family fortune grew when his sons, Frederick, Charles, Bill, and David Koch took over their father's business and turned it into the powerful and successful conglomerate it is today. It now owns a large variety of businesses, ranging from food, shelter, and clothing to transportation and fuel. The company produces 16 types of goods in total.

Backstory

For a bit of backstory, when Fred was working at the Wichita, Kansas-based Keith-Winkler Engineering company, the company had a big breakthrough with a technique for refining gasoline. However, larger and more established companies prevented Koch's company from using this new technique with lawsuits. So, Fred left for Europe in the years just before World War II. In the 1940s, he found a job working for the legendary Russian dictator, Stalin, who paid Koch 500,000 dollars to build 15 oil refineries in the Soviet Union. Koch also worked with the American Nazi sympathizer, William Rhodes Davis, to build an enormous oil refinery for the Third Reich. The Koch-built refinery was crucial to Hitler's war machine and produced hundreds of thousands of gallons for the Luftwaffe. However, in 1944, it was destroyed by Allied airstrikes.

Fred Koch founded the Wood River Oil and Refining Company in 1940 but changed the name of the company to Rock Island Oil and Refining Company six years later. He and his wife, Mary, had four sons, Frederick, Charles, and a pair of twins, David and Bill. Frederick had no interest in the family business, so Charles joined it in 1961 when he was 26 years old. The business was worth 80 million dollars at the time. After another five years, Charles was president of the company, and when Fred died in 1967, Charles became the chairman, the business then worth 250 million dollars at the time. The next year, he renamed the company after his father to what we call it now, Koch Industries. Then David and Bill joined the family business in 1970 and 1971, respectively.

Now under the Koch brothers’ rule, Koch Industries expanded into asphalt, fertilizers, pulp, paper manufacturing, ranching, natural gas, plastics, petroleum, energy, fibers and textiles, chemical development and production, commodities trading, and finance.

Family Feud

However, things took a heated turn when the brothers fell into a disagreement because they had different ideas on how to run the family business. There was a family feud that lasted 20 years! The brothers got so bitter; they went as far as hiring private investigators to dig up dirt on each other! Bill's investigator, at one point, even went through the trash at the homes and offices of Charles, David, and their lawyers! Bill had reportedly bribed garbage collectors and janitors. Then, in 1980, Bill also attempted a coup to take over the board of the family company and force his brothers out. However, it didn’t end well for him as Charles and David gave him 400,000 dollars to get rid of him. Bill wasn’t the only one who had a problem. Not only Bill, but Frederick still owned shares in Koch Industries. So essentially, it was Bill and Frederick versus Charles and David!

It wasn’t until 1983 that the brothers finally settled. Bill was paid 620 million dollars for his 21 percent stake in the company, and Fred was paid 400 million dollars. But only just two years later, Bill and Fred took Charles and David to court, claiming that their shares had been undervalued in the 1983 settlement. This case was then settled for 25 million dollars.

However, the family feud didn’t just end yet. In 1998, Bill told reporters he was going to appeal and called his brother's crooks. Bill and Fred ended up with 1.1 billion dollars each in the end. Finally, in 2001, Charles, David, and Bill met at Bill's Palm Beach, Florida estate to sign a final settlement dividing their father's fortune and property. It was the first time the brothers had dinner together in almost two decades!

Facts

The Koch brothers are also known for their political activism. They are extremely influential in politics, especially in far right-wing issues, and have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to bring their fringe political ideas to the center of American politics. They also use unapologetic advocates for the principles of a free and open society. Charles and David Koch built a political network of libertarian and conservative donors, and the brothers funneled financial revenue into television and multimedia advertising. In 2017, Koch Industries gave 1.3 million dollars to congressional candidates, and in 2018, they spent 400 million dollars in the midterm elections. In 2020, they further donated 1.5 million dollars to the election cycle.

The Koch family also founded the Koch Family Foundations, which are a related group of non-profit organizations. It started with the Fred and Mary Koch Foundation in 1953, and now includes the Cato Institute, the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation, and the Koch Cultural Trust. These organizations have a collective goal of "advancing liberty and freedom" through the support of various causes, which "further social progress and sustainable growth in prosperity". In addition to this, the groups have also contributed financially to other organizations in the fields of research, libertarian solutions to public well-being, arts, and education.

The Koch family has been funding these conservative and libertarian groups through think tanks for over forty years. The Cato Institute, which Charles Koch helped create in 1974, is ranked among the top 25 U.S. think tanks overall in terms of influence on public policy in the United States. In 2015, the Kochs worked with the American Civil Liberties Union on criminal justice reform. They have also worked to make changes to federal sentencing guidelines and reduce prison populations. The Koch family also opposes the government spending any money on climate change! An Anthropogenic climate change skeptic, Willie Soon, received more than 500,000 dollars from Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and the Koch Cultural Trust. Many of their recipients actively oppose clean energy and carbon legislation and are skeptical of climate science. The Koch brothers were involved in gathering climate change skeptics in 1991. Although George H. W. Bush supported research into global warming, the acceptance of scientific evidence on climate change began to weaken due to the Koch family's influence! They also opposed George W. Bush on many other issues, including pro-choice and same-sex marriages. They worked closely with the Obama White House instead for the Obama administration's criminal justice reform initiatives that aligned with their own.

Julia Koch

David Koch passed away on August 23rd, 2019, leaving just one brother at Koch Industries. Before his death, he owned a 42 percent stake in the family business, which he left to his wife, Julia Koch, and their three children, who are all in their early-to-mid 20s, along with 41 billion dollars. Julia had married David in 1996 at his home in Southampton, New York. Julia had given up her career as an assistant at the fashion house, Adolfo, to be the wife of a billionaire. Her responsibilities included maintaining the family’s residences in Manhattan, Southampton, Aspen, and West Palm Beach instead. Julia is also an active philanthropist, who has donated huge sums of money to the Lincoln Centre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. She is largely credited for helping her husband develop his love for art and making him more socially prominent than his brothers.

Chase Koch

Another prominent member of the family is Charles’s son, Chase Koch. He is the co-owner, CEO, and chairman of Koch Industries. He also directs the venture capital company, Koch Disruptive Technologies, and is a leading figure in the family's philanthropic activities. Chase’s business career started at age 25 or 26 when he began to work for Koch Industries. During the next few years, he worked in a series of high-level positions at the company, and then in 2006, began working as a regional manager in global supply for Koch Nitrogen Company. Seven years later, he was appointed president of Koch Fertilizer, and later became president of Koch Agronomic Services.

He founded Koch Disruptive Technologies in 2018, which is considered Koch Industries' venture-capital arm. His company has invested in sectors outside of Koch's traditional areas of expertise, such as InSightec Ltd., which manufactures surgical tools that employ ultrasound. He also mentioned in an interview that his company is interested in investing in "principled entrepreneurs", and in seeking out technologies that can transform methods of production.

As for his philanthropic activities, Chase reportedly prefers to find things that he and his philanthropic collaborators can agree on rather than be involved in political conflict. He said that his aim was "to be a bridge-builder and an innovator focused on civil society." In 2015, he was involved in an anti-poverty initiative. He has also expressed concern about urban violence and police shootings by supporting Urban Specialists. In 2018, Chase led a weekend retreat to discuss his philanthropic network's future direction and help solve problems through nonprofits and advocacy work. He is also working with people like Van Jones on issues like prison reform.

So, what do you guys think? Was the Koch family as interesting as you had imagined? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

[jperrypavingri]

Leading Paving Company in Rhode Island | J. Perry Paving

J. Perry Paving takes pride in providing top-tier asphalt Driveway Paving RI. Our seasoned project managers are experts in crafting resilient and long-lasting driveways, no matter the size. We prioritize your schedule, ensuring an efficient completion of the job. Contact us at 401-732-1730 to learn more. Count on J. Perry Paving for quality results that endure the test of time in Rhode Island paving.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 9.12

490 BC – Battle of Marathon: The conventionally accepted date for the Battle of Marathon. The Athenians and their Plataean allies defeat the first Persian invasion force of Greece. 372 – Sixteen Kingdoms: Jin Xiaowudi, age 10, succeeds his father Jin Jianwendi as Emperor of the Eastern Jin dynasty. 1213 – Albigensian Crusade: Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester, defeats Peter II of Aragon at the Battle of Muret. 1229 – Battle of Portopí: The Aragonese army under the command of James I of Aragon disembarks at Santa Ponça, Majorca, with the purpose of conquering the island. 1309 – The First Siege of Gibraltar takes place in the context of the Spanish Reconquista pitting the forces of the Kingdom of Castile against the Emirate of Granada resulting in a Castilian victory. 1609 – Henry Hudson begins his exploration of the Hudson River while aboard the Halve Maen. 1634 – A gunpowder factory explodes in Valletta, Malta, killing 22 people and damaging several buildings. 1683 – Austro-Ottoman War: Battle of Vienna: Several European armies join forces to defeat the Ottoman Empire. 1762 – The Sultanate of Sulu ceded Balambangan Island to the British East India Company 1814 – Battle of North Point: an American detachment halts the British land advance to Baltimore in the War of 1812. 1846 – Elizabeth Barrett elopes with Robert Browning. 1847 – Mexican–American War: the Battle of Chapultepec begins. 1848 – A new constitution marks the establishment of Switzerland as a federal state. 1857 – The SS Central America sinks about 160 miles east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, drowning a total of 426 passengers and crew, including Captain William Lewis Herndon. The ship was carrying 13–15 tons of gold from the California Gold Rush. 1885 – Arbroath 36–0 Bon Accord, a world record scoreline in professional Association football. 1890 – Salisbury, Rhodesia, is founded. 1897 – Tirah Campaign: In the Battle of Saragarhi, ten thousand Pashtun tribesmen suffer several hundred casualties while attacking 21 Sikh soldiers in British service. 1906 – The Newport Transporter Bridge is opened in Newport, South Wales by Viscount Tredegar. 1910 – Premiere performance of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8 in Munich (with a chorus of 852 singers and an orchestra of 171 players. Mahler's rehearsal assistant conductor was Bruno Walter). 1915 – French soldiers rescue over 4,000 Armenian genocide survivors stranded on Musa Dagh. 1923 – Southern Rhodesia, today called Zimbabwe, is annexed by the United Kingdom. 1933 – Leó Szilárd, waiting for a red light on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury, conceives the idea of the nuclear chain reaction. 1938 – Adolf Hitler demands autonomy and self-determination for the Germans of the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. 1940 – Cave paintings are discovered in Lascaux, France. 1940 – The Hercules Powder Plant Disaster in the United States kills 51 people and injures over 200. 1942 – World War II: RMS Laconia, carrying civilians, Allied soldiers and Italian POWs is torpedoed off the coast of West Africa and sinks with a heavy loss of life. 1942 – World War II: First day of the Battle of Edson's Ridge during the Guadalcanal Campaign. U.S. Marines protecting Henderson Field are attacked by Japanese troops. 1943 – World War II: Benito Mussolini is rescued from house arrest by German commando forces led by Otto Skorzeny. 1944 – World War II: The liberation of Yugoslavia from Axis occupation continues. Bajina Bašta in western Serbia is among the liberated cities. 1945 – The People's Republic of Korea is proclaimed, bringing an end to Japanese rule over Korea. 1948 – Marshal Lin Biao, commander-in-chief of the Chinese communist Northeast Field Army, launched a massive offensive toward Jinzhou, Liaoshen Campaign has begun. 1953 – U.S. Senator and future President John Fitzgerald Kennedy marries Jacqueline Lee Bouvier at St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island. 1958 – Jack Kilby demonstrates the first working integrated circuit while working at Texas Instruments. 1959 – The Soviet Union launches a large rocket, Lunik II, at the Moon. 1959 – Bonanza premieres, the first regularly scheduled TV program presented in color. 1961 – The African and Malagasy Union is founded. 1962 – President Kennedy delivers his "We choose to go to the Moon" speech at Rice University. 1966 – Gemini 11, the penultimate mission of NASA's Gemini program, and the current human altitude record holder (except for the Apollo lunar missions). 1970 – Dawson's Field hijackings: Palestinian terrorists blow up three hijacked airliners in Jordan, continuing to hold the passengers hostage in various undisclosed locations in Amman. 1974 – Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, 'Messiah' of the Rastafari movement, is deposed following a military coup by the Derg, ending a reign of 58 years. 1977 – South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko dies in police custody. 1980 – Military coup in Turkey. 1983 – A Wells Fargo depot in West Hartford, Connecticut, United States, is robbed of approximately US$7 million by Los Macheteros. 1983 – The USSR vetoes a United Nations Security Council Resolution deploring the Soviet destruction of Korean Air Lines Flight 007. 1984 – Dwight Gooden sets the baseball record for strikeouts in a season by a rookie with 276, previously set by Herb Score with 246 in 1954. Gooden's 276 strikeouts that season, pitched in 218 innings, set the current record. 1988 – Hurricane Gilbert devastates Jamaica; it turns towards Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula two days later, causing an estimated $5 billion in damage. 1990 – The two German states and the Four Powers sign the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany in Moscow, paving the way for German reunification. 1990 – The Red Cross organizations of mainland China and Taiwan sign Kinmen Agreement on repatriation of illegal immigrants and criminal suspects after two days of talks in Kinmen, Fujian Province in response to the two tragedies in repatriation in the previous two months. It is the first agreement reached by private organizations across the Taiwan Strait. 1992 – NASA launches Space Shuttle Endeavour on STS-47 which marked the 50th shuttle mission. On board are Mae Carol Jemison, the first African-American woman in space, Mamoru Mohri, the first Japanese citizen to fly in a US spaceship, and Mark Lee and Jan Davis, the first married couple in space. 1992 – Abimael Guzmán, leader of the Shining Path, is captured by Peruvian special forces; shortly thereafter the rest of Shining Path's leadership fell as well. 1994 – Frank Eugene Corder fatally crashes a single-engine Cessna 150 into the White House's south lawn, striking the West wing. There were no other casualties. 2001 – Ansett Australia, Australia's first commercial interstate airline, collapses due to increased strain on the international airline industry, leaving 10,000 people unemployed. 2003 – The United Nations lifts sanctions against Libya after that country agreed to accept responsibility and recompense the families of victims in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. 2003 – Iraq War: In Fallujah, U.S. forces mistakenly shoot and kill eight Iraqi police officers. 2005 – Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the Israeli disengagement from Gaza is completed, leaving some 2,530 homes demolished. 2007 – Former Philippine President Joseph Estrada is convicted of plunder. 2008 – The 2008 Chatsworth train collision in Los Angeles between a Metrolink commuter train and a Union Pacific freight train kills 25 people. 2011 – The National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City opens to the public. 2015 – A series of explosions involving propane triggering nearby illegally stored mining detonators in the Indian town of Petlawad in the state of Madhya Pradesh kills at least 105 people with over 150 injured.

[prelawland]

A History Of The Americans With Disabilities Act

By Stefania Valera, University of Rhode Island Class of 2021

July 31, 2020

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), was a monumental document in which paved the way for inclusiveness for those with disabilities; both mental and physical. In order to be protected by the ADA, “one must have a disability or have a relationship or association with an individual with a disability,” additionally an individual is protected under the act by “having a physical or mental impairment” [2]. The ADA recognizes the magnitude of disabilities that can exist within multiple people, and this past week the United States celebrated 30 years since the ADA was signed. It is important to acknowledge the history and advancements the United States has recognized and perpetrated since the ADA was signed.

July 20, 1968: The first ever Special Olympics Summer Games are organized in Soldier Field, Chicago [3]

September 26, 1973: The Rehabilitation Act is “passed to prohibit employment discrimination based on disability” [4]. Although the Act is intended to aid those with disabilities with inclusion, the Act is unable to make life more accessible for those with disabilities. Even more remarkably, the United States is the first country “to pass comprehensive protections for… people with disabilities” [5]

July 26, 1990: President G.W. Bush signs the ADA into law, “banning discrimination against millions of people requiring reasonable accommodations” in public life [6]

2006: Updated Transportation Regulations within the ADA are issued by the Department of Transportation [7]

July 26, 2010: President Barack Obama signs an Executive Order increasing the federal employment for people with disabilities [8]

July 26, 2020: The United States celebrates 30 years of the ADA!

The events above are a shortly accumulated list of some of the most important decisions and achievements the United States has done in order to improve and aid the Americans with Disabilities Act. Although the ADA has made tremendous efforts in helping those with disabilities, there are still drawbacks for many. The ADA has definitely helped those with disabilities, however some of the main points of concern are education and employment. The ADA has established a more inclusive environment for those with disabilities. In terms of education, schools have taken positive action in enforcing that kids with disabilities be taught in public schools. The same children may also attend schools designed for those with disabilities. The addition of school aids has helped children with disabilities be able to focus and receive more direction within classroom activities. However, after high school it is difficult for people with disabilities to gain a higher education. A good amount of schools dedicated to help those with disabilities stop after a generic high school graduation. Furthermore, this disallows those with disabilities to enter the work force at such a high percentage against those who have no disabilities.

CBS News reports that adults “with disabilities who are working by some measures hasn’t improved since the ADA passed in July 1990,” proving there is still much work to be done. More interestingly, “some economists suggest the ADA may have made it less likely for employers to hire people with disabilities because of the costs they might incur for providing accommodations” [9]. Furthermore, along with many of the stigmas and challenges that people with disabilities may have to face, due to this data and findings, it can be inferred that those with disabilities may not have as a fulfilling life or experience once they enter the workforce. Many of these stigmas and challenges need to be erased in order to provide a more fair and equal opportunity for those with disabilities. It is imperative that the United States understand that people with disabilities, “like all members of our communities, should be ensured access to the same protections and opportunities” [10]. There is no place for segregation and discrimination in the United States, therefore it is important for constituents and voters to understand the importance of those they vote into power, and to ensure that their values align with the leaders that will ultimately bridge the gap between differing communities. The ADA is certainly something to be celebrated, however with continuous efforts the United States can ensure that those with disabilities no longer feel like second-hand citizens.

________________________________________________________________

1.     “Disability Access Office.” The City of San Antonio - Official City Website.

2.     Carmel, Julia. “Before the A.D.A., There Was Section 504.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 22 July 2020.

3.     “History.” SpecialOlympics.org.

4.     A Guide to Disability Rights Laws.

5.     McGreevy, Nora. “The ADA Was a Monumental Achievement 30 Years Ago, but the Fight for Equal Rights Continues.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 24 July 2020.

6.     “Beyond the Law's Promise: 30 Years Since the Passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 July 2020.

7.     “Timeline of the Americans with Disabilities Act.” ADA National Network, 5 Aug. 2020.

8.     “From the Archives: A Landmark Moment for Americans with Disabilities.” National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration.

9.     Picchi, Aimee. “Americans with Disabilities Still Can't Land Jobs.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 26 July 2017.

10.  Pettinicchio, David. “Perspective | Why Disabled Americans Remain Second-Class Citizens.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 23 July 2019.

[newingtonnow]

The Industrial Revolution Comes to Jewett City

With its abundant waterways, Connecticut, like the rest of New England, had the necessary power source to fuel a revolution in manufacturing that, together with other innovations of the late 1700s and early 1800s, led to sweeping transformations in the United States.

Slater Introduces British Manufacturing Practices to US

The Industrial Revolution describes a roughly 100-year period in which mechanization led to changes in agriculture, transportation, manufacturing, and technology. Beginning in Great Britain around 1760, these forces brought profound alterations to the social, economic, and cultural conditions of the age.

The Industrial Revolution in the United States began in earnest with the formation of textile mills along the waterways of the towns of New England. Samuel Slater, an Englishman with experience in the mills of his native country, came to the US in 1789 and helped establish the nation’s first cotton mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Throughout his lifetime, Slater founded mills in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

Slater’s 1823 expansion into Connecticut was paved by an earlier venture. In 1809 two Rhode Islanders, John and Lafayette Tibbits, bought property in Jewett City. (Today, Jewett City is a borough of Griswold.) Sitting along the confluence of the Pachaug and Quinebaug rivers, Jewett City had earlier been the site of corn, grist, and saw mills, so the spot seemed well-suited to the Tibbets’ textile enterprise: the Jewett City Cotton Manufacturing Company. However, the firm struggled for years before it was sold in 1823 to Samuel Slater and his brother John, who had joined Samuel in the US. They soon changed the name of the mill to Slater Company. In the years that followed, John and his son, John Fox Slater, introduced mechanical improvements to increase production. They also expanded operations to include another mill in nearby Hopeville.

The oldest piece of cotton machinery in America the 48-spindle spinning machine built by Samuel Slater, ca. 1790

Surviving records from the early years of the Slater Company in Connecticut reveal much about the nature of day-to-day mill operations, including insights into relations between management and labor. As workers shifted from being small producers of hand-made materials to being paid laborers in increasingly mechanized factories, frictions inevitably arose when the interests of employers and employees diverged. For example, a letter written by Samuel Slater in 1823 advises Ezra W. Fletcher, a supervisor of the Jewett City property, on how to deal with workers who had objected when asked to increase their workloads. The workers in question were known as spinners because they monitored spinning machines whose sides consisted of long banks of fast-moving spindles (tapered rods around which yarn or thread is wound) to ensure threads did not break, entangle, or otherwise slow down production. Slater issued the following instructions:

As respects the spinners, who refuse to tend more than two sides, … case them down as soon as it can be legally done, all my spinners at Oxford, [Massachusetts,] tend four sides of 128 spindles.

This single line reveals management’s expectations that a single worker could manage four banks, or sides, rather than two. In practical terms, by doubling the spinners’ work the factory could either employ fewer spinners or expand the number of spinning machines without a corresponding increase in labor. This letter provides a glimpse into the human struggle being waged in factories across New England as the Industrial Revolution transformed the nature of work.

Contributed by Laura Smith, Curator for Business, Railroad, and Labor Collections, Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Libraries.

from Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project https://connecticuthistory.org/the-industrial-revolution-comes-to-jewett-city/

[onsumocom]

Slashdot: Does America's First Commercial Offshore Wind Farm Portend a Clean Energy Revolution?

Does America's First Commercial Offshore Wind Farm Portend a Clean Energy Revolution? Published on September 21, 2019 at 12:34PM In the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Slashdot reader Dan Drollette describes visiting one of North America's biggest experiments in renewable energy, off the coast of Rhode Island. As the only commercial offshore wind farm in North America, Block Island is "setting the stage for what could be a rapid explosion in the number of commercial offshore windmills on the entire East Coast of the United States, assuming they leap the latest set of ever-changing legal hurdles set by fossil-fuel friendly regulators in Washington, DC." The goal of the Block Island test wind farm -- which started construction in the summer of 2015 and started generating some power in December 2016 -- is to see if it is technologically, environmentally, and scientifically possible to transfer offshore wind power technology from Europe to North America... This five-turbine, 30-megawatt endeavor has been effectively acting as a multi-year, real-world experiment in offshore wind power for the United States, paving the way for offshore wind farms on the northeast coast and the mid-Atlantic that could each be as much as 600 times the size of this test site, with hundreds of turbines generating electricity for hundreds of thousands of homes from just one full-scale, industrial-sized wind farm. There are more than a dozen large offshore "wind lease areas" suitable for wind farms currently up for bid from the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, stretching from Massachusetts to North Carolina. Massachusetts alone is soliciting contracts for 1,600 megawatts of offshore wind development (half have now been sold), which is more than 50 times the size of this pilot project off of Block Island.... Once it is built and running, the Massachusetts project off Martha's Vineyard alone will provide enough energy to power at least 230,000 households, or about a third of the state's residential energy demand. Other states are working on a similar gargantuan scale. All told, there are 28 offshore wind projects in the works on the East Coast, with a total capacity of 24 gigawatts, or 24,000 megawatts. To give a sense of the massive size of the generating power of the wind farms now in the works, the first commercial civilian nuclear reactor in the United States -- Massachusetts' Yankee Rowe Nuclear Power Station, now decommissioned -- generated just 185 megawatts at its peak. But after decades of false starts and tangled litigation, a sea change appears to be occurring for offshore wind in the United States, as this country races to catch up with Northern Europe, where this renewable energy source has become increasingly mainstream and increasingly cheap... And these offshore wind projects could have a big impact on the environment. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that the newly contracted wind farms would offset carbon emissions equivalent to removing about 270,000 cars from the road. They could play a key role in reducing the region's climate change footprint, while allowing the New England economy to grow... Consequently, this handful of windmills in one test plot have been closely watched, studied, and debated, from multiple points of view, by many different "stakeholders," as the parlance goes -- including Wall Street analysts, investment firms, engineers, economists, sociologists, fisheries experts, environmental activists, historic preservationists, ornithologists, marine mammal biologists, Native American tribes, scallopers, long-liners, oystermen, sport fisherman, real estate investors, the tourism industry, and homeowners. And, of course, lawyers. Many, many lawyers... The article notes that often windmill power companies "can piggyback on existing infrastructure, in the form of the high-tension power lines built for decommissioned nuclear plants or retired coal-fired plants such as the 1,500 megawatt Brayton Point Power Station on the mainland -- the last coal-burning plant in Massachusetts, which was shut down in May 2017..." After talking to several locals, he concludes that "If there is a common thread to the comments, it is that the windmills are quiet and distant, and that with a steady and predictable source of power, islanders no longer have to worry about blackouts or brownouts... If nothing else, wind had turned out to be more reliable than ferrying barrels of diesel fuel to a generator located on an island 13 miles out to sea."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.